Over the holidays, our merry M2W elves completed a new set of email client configuration guides. Produced in PDF and (this is exciting!) streaming video tutorial formats, each one provides step-by-step instructions about how to set up and use desktop or wireless email software with our service. Check'em out from within your email account on the Options > POP3/IMAP4 & SMTP Setup Information page.

If you're an email admin, be sure to let your users know about the new non-branded documentation.

If you're a reseller, you'll be glad to know the PDFs can be rebranded by editing them with a PDF editor like Adobe's Acrobat PDF Writer software. It's easy to add your logo, email address, etc.

Did any of you get a chance to view the Webcast on "Technology for a Collaborative World?" I thought the presentation by Cisco's Chief Development Officer Charles Giancarlo hit on some key points about how the Internet is really becoming The Network and how that is changing the way we collaborate.The network as a platform will allow users to break all the global barriers and allow them to communicate and collaborate in the most effective and efficent ways.

Marthin De Beer's comments about collaboration and how businesses are moving toward inter-company and cross-company collaboration platforms was right on the money. Mail2World as a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider specializing in email and collaborations has many customers who come to us for this exact reason. Our Web 2.0 technologies, APIs and securities allow us to integrate our services into the heart of our customers' operations, allowing them to achieve maximum effectiveness, lower total cost of ownership and added value for their company and users.

I also like what Jayshree Ullal had to say. Her comments about Web 2.0 creating a universal language allowing applications and infrastructures to speak to one another is exactly what I've planned for.This is all part of the Data Center 3.0 strategies and how the applications will speak to the infrastructure and how the infrastructure will respond. Cisco's push to reduce latency from milliseconds to nanoseconds, enhancing communication between infrastructure and application and blend what they've learned in all product lines to strengthen each product line is giving all Cisco end-users superior benefits.

To summarize, what I see is that bandwidth and infrastructure performance is increasing rapidly. We are no longer deploying dumb topology infrastructures, but instead, deploying intelligent, role-based, virtual infrastructures that will lead us to global, borderless communication and collaboration solutions where Software as a Service business models will lead the way.

Let's jump right into Data Center 3.0 and what it is all about. Data Center 3.0 is the next step in the evolution--and more so the revolution--of data centers. In Data Center 3.0, we break down the silo barriers and blur the lines of where the network begins, where servers end, and where storage starts. Data Center 3.0 blends network storage, server virtualization, network infrastructure and application awareness into one extremely powerful platform to maximize investment and utilization never before achievable.

Data Center 3.0 will allow Software as a Service providers like Mail2World to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in a whole new aspect. We will be able to leverage this powerful platform to achieve better levels of infrastructure utilization and lower power consumption to help with green initiatives, yet still provide industry-leading performance and rich user experiences.

Mail2World's strategies for architecting our infrastructure are exactly in line with Cisco's Data Center 3.0. We have architected our infrastructure for tomorrow's needs, allowing us to be agile in an ever-changing market and be able to take advantage of every opportunity. This means we will always be in a position to be a value added service to our customers and end users.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

I was invited to be a guest speaker at Cisco's C-Scape 2007 event last week. As a perk, I got to also attend the two-day conference. I had a blast, and our breakout session about M2W's new network went very well. This is what Mark Weiner, Director of Product Marketing for Data Center Solutions sent me after my presentation:

Julian,

Your input as panelist on our widely attended ANS afternoon presentation was exactly what the analysts and press come to hear--we really appreciate it and well done. The fact that attendees stayed 10 min past session end time, and then remained for 1:1 questions tells you the content hit the spot!

Cheers, Mark

I can't wait to tell you all about it! I'll be breaking up my discussion into a four-part miniseries.

PART 1

For those of you who don't know what C-Scape is, this is Cisco's annual analyst event. They invite top industry and financial analysts to San Jose, where Cisco execs, industry leaders and analysts discuss and debate high-technology topics for a couple of days. This year, they focused on:

The future of IT

The impact of collaboration and Web 2.0 on the industry & business

How globalization is changing business models and processes

Why the network has become the platform for all IT and communications

Day one consisted of a keynote opening by Cisco's CEO John Chambers, where he discussed how telepresence, collaboration and video are changing the entire industry, with video being the main driving factor. There was also a panel discussion by top CIOsLouie Ehrlich, VP & CIO of Serivices and Strategies for Chevron; Rebecca Jacoby, VP & CIO for Cisco; Randall Spratt, VP and CIO for McKesson. Moderator was Network World's CEO John Gallant.

One of the most interesting comments for me was when Rebecca Jacoby mention in "Future State of CIO," how even Cisco is adopting a Software as a Service (SaaS) business model. This is a huge statement because it goes to show how even a big powerhouse like Cisco sees the value-add of Software as a Service. To me, this validates Mail2World's efforts as a SaaS provider.

Stay tuned for discussions about Data Center 3.0, Collaboration and Application Network Services, where I presented and discussed M2W's Cisco ACE deployment with top industry analysts. Meanwhile, here are links to more info about C-Scape 2007...

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

My name is Julian Tang. I am the senior network manager here at Mail2World. I'll be blogging to you about our infrastructure technologies, vendors, what's coming in the near future, and the experiences I have along this journey.

You probably already know that M2W completed a major network and system upgrade, in addition to moving to a new state-of-the-art datacenter over the summer. In this upgrade, we designed and implemented a pure Cisco solution utilizing several Next Generation Networking (NGN) technologies, such as their Load Balancer, called the Application Control Engine (ACE), and the Firewall Service Module (FWSM). In addition to the network upgrade, we moved to a state-of-the-art datacenter hosted by SAVVIS in Southern California. One of the great aspects of SAVVIS is that they have datacenters all over the world, so it makes for easy expansion.

SAVVIS Command Center

In addition to Cisco and SAVVIS, we are also utilizing two other vendors: Time Warner Telecom in our bandwidth blend and Data Systems Worldwide for technology consultation and implementation. We specifically chose Time Warner to provide additional bandwidth at SAVVIS and to connect both datacenters together during our migration. I have to say, the 100Mb layer 2 connection between datacenters was flawless. It was like being right there on the LAN, even though the datacenters were 50 miles apart. We even had one customer with all their traffic coming into the new datacenter, but all their files were accessed over the 100Mb link. They couldn't even tell the difference.

Data Systems Worldwide helped us design and implement the new Cisco infrastructure. Their multiple CCIE engineers were a blast to work with. Thanks, Sean, Roman, Mustafa! Working together they were able to help me understand the full capabilities of our new infrastructure and how they will benefit our customers--that means you! In addition to the engineers, my sales rep Gregg did a fantastic job helping me navigate the Cisco process and making sure we stayed on schedule.

You might be wondering why we moved to a state-of-the-art SAVVIS datacenter, upgraded to a pure Cisco infrastructure, and developed new strategic relationships with companies like Data Systems Worldwide. We did so because of our customers. We know how important email is to everyone and what you expect from us. We do a lot of monitoring, trending and forecasting. With the needs and requirements that we're developing for 2008 and what is being forecasted, we had to make a proactive decision to ensure we can continue to giving you the best possible services. I definitely feel that after putting this new environment through the paces, we have a solid foundation on which we can build. Now, if we can just get those new customers to ink their contracts, they can experience the fastest system email around!!!

In my future posts. I'll be diving deep into why we designed our network the way we did, how we selected the vendors we utilized, and explaining some of the challenges we conquered. Here’s a brief preview of my next post...

The Cisco Application Control Engine (aka ACE load balancer): The ACE can handle up to 16Gbps of traffic, 4.4 million concurrent connections, SSL acceleration, and deep layer 7 capabilities--just to name a few things. I’m going to take you deep into why we choose this product against all others.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Hi, I'm Miguel, and I'm customer support manager here at Mail2World. I'll be posting lots of email ideas and tips so you and your users can get the most out of our service.

So, imagine one of your company's salespeople has the only contact information for an important new customer in his email Contacts list. Then imagine your CEO urgently wants to speak with that customer, but the salesperson is on a plane somewhere and can't be reached. Could be a nasty situation, but thanks to a new feature in the Contacts management system, valuable information is no longer trapped in individual users' Contacts.

Contact information can now be shared with colleagues or published for global sharing. Users can also send contact info as an Online Business Card, vCard or RSS feed. There's even a slick new way to keep contact info updated. Best of all, the CEO has that customer's phone number right at his fingertips!

Here are a few tips about sharing contact information:

1. Company Directoryis a convenient place to store and share contacts for co-workers and others in your place of employment. To add a new contact to the Company Directory, click Add Contact in the left nav bar, fill in the information, then click Create and Close.

2. Send Full Contact Informationto share it with others by first clicking on a contact's name in the Contacts list. When you see the contact's detail info, roll your cursor over the Send Full Contact button to view the sending options, then select the format you prefer.

3. Request Updated Contact Information directly from Contacts via email to keep your shared contact list fresh. The recipient of your request can easily add your information to his or her own address book with a single click, then respond with their contact details. Any updated info the recipient provides is inserted back into your address book automatically.

Start by clicking the name of the contact whose information you want to update. Then just hit the Request Update... button above the contact's name. The request will be delivered to the contact, and a pending notice will display at the top of the contact's profile.

That's it for now. Watch for my next post about all the cool mashups in Contacts.

NOTE: Mail2World was invited to write this report for publication on the industry Web site Technology Reports.

ARTICLE SUMMARYAfter 30 years of traditional email technology, businesses are shifting to low-cost Web messaging and collaboration and gaining a host of new capabilities. A new generation of sophisticated, Web-based solutions combines functionality once exclusive to high-end desktop applications with the flexibility and access of the Web. This feature-rich technology marks a new stage in the evolution of email that offers enterprises a viable alternative to entrenched technologies like Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, as well as an affordable way to expand enterprise messaging to extended workforces around the globe.

Readers of this article will learn how Web-based messaging and collaboration technology is evolving into a Rich Internet Application (RIA) and about the status of email and messaging RIA technology life cycles.

THE PROBLEM WITH EMAIL TECHNOLOGYHistorical ContextDuring the past two decades, the corporate communications landscape has been dominated by complex, expensive traditional email networks, such as Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes. Driven by globalization in the late 1990s, corporations began deploying multiple email systems around the world, which strained IT budgets and management resources. Corporations also lost control of email document management, and email searches for legal or other reasons became costly and prone to error. Introduction of desktop messaging and collaboration applications initially improved the cost-effectiveness of existing platforms, but not enough to offset the growing burden on IT operations.

At the start of the new millennium, a handful of visionary companies began connecting the dots between soaring IT costs, email and the Web. They envisioned more affordable, truly global, Web-based email solutions for businesses of all sizes. Well-received by many small and medium-sized businesses for their cost-effectiveness, deployment of Web-based messaging solutions within large enterprises met resistance due to security concerns and substantial investments in existing messaging platforms.

The Fourth Dot: Rich Internet ApplicationsMore recently, a few Web-based email technology firms began integrating elements of a new development trend into their core architecture: Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). As a result, a new generation of sophisticated, Web-based messaging and collaboration solutions is emerging, combining rich features and functionality once exclusive to high-end desktop applications with the access, scalability and flexibility of the Web.

Business Impact of RIA Messaging and Collaboration As Web-based applications, messaging and collaboration RIAs offer advantages that far outweigh their limitations, especially in comparison to client software-based alternatives. Web delivery provides businesses the benefits of server-based deployment, such as centralized management, and frees users from having to configure software and administer version updates. The anywhere, anytime access afforded by Web deployment allows low-cost, global deployment of applications, such as email for enterprise extended workforces (e.g., factory workers, retail salespeople, flight crews). Additional benefits:

Lowers costs while extending an enterprise’s collaborative power

Reduces IT investments by eliminating the need for in-house storage upgrades

Solves the problem of document management and low-cost searches by providing archiving with search capability

Increases usage of applications due to improved user satisfaction

Enables business continuity by providing a parallel, offsite messaging system

Connects internal messaging systems with wireless devices

Provides email retention and archival compliance

Messaging Technology Life Cycle The power, complexity and cost of traditional messaging technologies have been increasing for more than two decades. Today, these incumbent technologies have overshot the needs--and budgets--of most small and medium-sized businesses and some enterprises.

Next-generation messaging and collaboration RIAs offer a new, lower performance, but less expensive technology than incumbent systems. Some messaging and collaboration RIAs started their life cycles as Web-based email platforms that gained a foothold in the low end of the market, successively moving up-market through performance improvements, such as integrating RIA features and functionality.

Web-based messaging and collaboration platforms with Rich Internet Application innovations have recently advanced to the point of exceeding the needs of certain enterprise user segments, creating a viable, low-cost alternative to traditional messaging technology.

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More About Mail2World

Mail2World is a world-class email hosting provider. We offer business email, mobile email, reseller email hosting, and private-label email services. With the richest feature set in the industry, Mail2World's customer base includes hundreds of reputable brands and prominent organizations from around the world, including publicity-traded corporations, telecom carriers, mobile operators, and some of the most-recognized universities and online social portals. Solutions include business email, mobile email, reseller email hosting, email security, email encryption and FailSafe Protection.